How To Grow Your Business with Humor

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Photo courtesy of  Andy-Eskha

Guest Post by Misa Chien

They say laughter is the best medicine. But did you know you can grow your business with humor?

Michael Kerr is the author of The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank. He works to empower leaders to improve company culture through increasing the energy level of employees.

Kerr’s work empowers leaders to grow their business with humor. “In all my previous work experience, as a manager, as a leader, I was always known for my sense of humor,” he says. “I saw the benefits of humor in the workplace.”

After being in a position where the company culture seemed draining and unexciting, Kerr focused on the use of humor in building up a more energized culture. “That’s when I had this ‘aha’ moment and realized that I think there’s a lot more to this humor than just a nice to have,” he says.

He began by researching and attending conferences of how to use humor to improve company culture. Now he helps lead business leaders implement those valuable tactics he’s learned to grow their business.

Less Stress and More Success

In his book, Kerr has a chapter that introduces the importance of lowered stress levels is connected to more success.

Stress strongly influences employee retention.

“I think the pace of change has gotten so crazy,” he says. There are a number of contributing factors to stress in life: caring for family, technology, work, leisure. “And I think a lot of the stress in so many workplaces is from poor leadership where they don’t feel valued or appreciated,” he says.

The solution: Laughter

So how can companies deal with this level of unnecessary stress? Kerr’s solution is simple: laughter.

“It’s a fun solution at the same time,” he says. “We know from research that laughter is one of the most effective ways of relaxing us. Just from a physical response, we know laughter can ease stress.”

But the benefits of laughter don’t just stop at the internal level. Laughter and a good attitude can help us build networks and relationships at the workplace. “It creates an environment where we want to work together as a team,” he says.

He also adds that humor helps employees reframe what are perceived as problems into a more realistic perspective. “We do have to remind ourselves that stress is in the eye of the beholder. It’s not the things that happen at work that stress us out, it is our interpretation of those things that is the source of stress.”

Humor allows people to lighten up and enjoy life, both at work and home.

Types of Healthy Humor

Certain types of humor fair better in the workplace than others. The type of humor used is connected to how effective and influential it will be among leadership and coworkers.  

“Everything that I’m talking about in the book is about good and safe humor – humor that laughs with people, not at people,” he says. “Humor that tears down barriers, not humor that builds barriers; that laughs in the supportive, creative ideas as opposed to humor that laughs at people’s suggestions and ideas.”

Grow your business with humor that encourages and builds others up.

The two kinds of humor to implement that lead to increased mood and company growth are affiliative humor and self-enhancing humor.

Kerr describes affiliative humor as, “the tendency to tell jokes, make humorous observations and say funny things as a way to reduce tensions in the workplace, to facilitate relationships,” he says.

Self-enhancing humor, he says, “It’s about having a humorous outlook. It’s about keeping one’s sense of humor in the face of stress.”

Practicing these styles of humor greatly improves the attitudes of the workplace at all levels.

The other styles of humor, aggressive humor and self-defeating humor, shouldn’t be used to boost company culture.

Laughter Leads to Longterm Growth

So laughter supports a positive company culture. How can you grow your business with humor?

“What we know from so much research…we know that culture is a key driver of business success,” he says. “It is what drives our success. We know it’s your number one competitive advantage.”

Some other benefits of laughter in company culture he mentions:

  • Lower employee turnover
  • Lower absenteeism
  • Increased sales
  • Improved customer service
  • Lower presenteeism

Goals are essential to business, but those goals should also be accomplished within the context of having fun and enjoying the ride.

“Great cultures don’t just happen,” he says. “Everybody says they’re great, but there’s a difference between saying and doing. And what the great companies do so well is they’re intentional about their culture. They recognize that you can’t just buy your culture; you have to build it day in and day out.”

To encourage others to join in on your culture, create engaging content and advertisements that demonstrate the fun they want to attract in hiring talent. To grow your business with humor, it all comes down to culture.

Resources

Michael Kerr’s business, Humor At Work

The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses are Laughing All the Way to the Bank  

Author

Misa Chien is an asian model signed with LA Models and cooking mom based in Los Angeles.  Her food blog, Nom Nom TV, specializes in blog posts such as soba noodle recipes all the way to the top items to buy at 99 ranch market.

The Startup Pitfalls That You’ll Unwillingly Step Into

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When you fail to hit your targets, you might turn to blaming your bad luck as the reason that you’re not doing too hot. While it’s completely understandable that you would be frustrated, you need to come to grips with the cold, hard truth; it was your own fault. You are in control of your business and you are the one that controls its success or failures, so it’s important to learn from your mistakes and move on after you’ve analyzed them. If you want a better chance of running a successful business, then here are a couple of common startup pitfalls that you’ll need to avoid at all costs.

Forgetting About Your Life

Operating your own business is incredibly stressful and a lot of hard work. As such, it’s important to remember that you have a life outside of your business and you should do your best not to forget that. As much as you want your business to succeed, it will all be for nothing if you fail to look after your own health or your commitments outside of your job. Don’t marry your work; make sure you save time to spend with your friends and family so you don’t overwork yourself. If you need convincing, take a look at this article from afterninetofive.net to learn why overworking yourself is never a good idea.

Failing to Budget

Money makes the world (and your business) go round. Without money, you won’t be able to pay employees, expand your business, advertise your products and so on. This should be fairly obvious, but what might not be obvious is that you actually need to budget for your business as well. Whether you hire an accountant or do it yourself with cloud accounting software, make sure you’re always in the green and that all of your expenses are optimizing so you aren’t wasting money. If you feel like you’re in financial trouble, then services like Businesslineof.credit can be a fantastic helping hand that will drag you out of that pit. Every business will need a loan at some point whether it’s to grow the company or expand their operations, so don’t neglect it.

Neglecting Analytics

The best way to learn what’s going on with your business is to use analytics. By analyzing your business and recording data such as how your customers respond to certain changes on your website or what demographic your products are popular with, you can use those statistics to create better products, marketing campaigns and so on.

Aiming Too High

And we also can’t forget that aiming too high is a legitimate concern that you should be careful of. If you try to take on giants in business by considering them your rival, then you’ll quickly learn that you simply cannot compete with them. Know your place in your industry and gradually work your way up. Don’t think that you can overtake any business within your first year of operating because it takes a lot of work to grow.

Do What All The Millennials Do: Make Your Business A Success

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It seems we can’t go anywhere these days without hearing about some form of success story when it comes to business. Millennials creating smartphone applications that take over the world, becoming digital pioneers in a fast-paced and ever changing business environment, ad literally thriving not just driving under the overwhelming pressure. It certainly seems to be the inspiration for many others to follow suit as more business are being started up each day and with the promise of the a new year in full flow, now is often one of the most popular times to do it. But how do you ensure that your idea becomes a success? I wanted to share with you some of the things to consider to ensure that your business gets off the ground.

Having the right support in place

One thing you have got to consider when going into business or starting up on your own is having the right level of support around you. You may be an expert in your field and industry, know the service you provide inside out or the product you have created like the back of your hand, but you can’t always be the expert in every aspect of running a business. A good entrepreneur knows when they need extra guidance or support. That might mean computer network support where you have a company take care of things like cloud storage or handle your systems if things don’t go to plan. It might mean outsourcing to a digital agency who can come up with striking social media strategies or help your website be seen amongst the sea of other competitors out there. Choosing your support network is vital, as there will be areas that you can control yourself.

Knowing exactly what you want to do and how you want to achieve it

It is also important for you to know exactly what you want to do with your business model and how you plan on achieving it. This is how you can then strategize your business moves to ensure that you get your business to where it needs to be. This is the time to work out a business plan, know exactly how you plan on financing each move and then being open to ideas and change because business can be a very fast-paced environment and it’s important to ensure that you can also be flexible.

Embracing digital services

It’s now more important than ever that any new business embraces the world of digital. More is heading online these days and with consumer behaviors changing, it’s important that a business honors that and makes changes or at least gives customers the option. A decent website, being present on social media and ensuring that you have a decent marketing campaign could be the key to success.

A lot has to do with work ethic and attitude

Finally, while a lot has to do with how you make your business work you can’t forget that the only way it is going to happen is through hard work and dedication. Your attitude to your business and to life itself needs to be proactive and positive. Hard work will get you places.

The Wonderful Benefits of High-Quality Content for Your Business

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One of the most underrated aspects of business is high-quality content. This can cover a huge range of different components in your business, and in this article, we’re going to be discussing a couple of the most important ways to use original high-quality content.

What Type of Content Could Your Business Use?

The word content can be rather vague, but in most cases (at least, when relating to businesses) it means any kind of writing, video or photos that can be consumed by your audience. Here are some examples of content that you should always ensure are of high quality.

  • Product descriptions – When adding products to your business, their descriptions, specifications and any additional information should always be professionally written so that they convert leads into paying customers.
  • Blog posts – If you’ve attached a blog to your business, then all of those blog posts need to be relevant to your business in some way and written to a quality standard. You don’t want amateurish writing attached to your business, which is why it’s important to focus on quality over anything else.
  • Press releases – A press release is going to be publicly seen by many news outlets and industry influencers, so make sure you hire a professional service to write it for you unless you have talented writers at your disposal.
  • Website news – Any news post on your website should be able to excite existing customers and pique the curiosity of new ones.
  • Social media posts – Despite Twitter being focused on short-form writing, it’s still important to structure your social media posts.
  • Guides – Any tutorials or guides that are written for your business should be relevant to the products or services you create. For instance, a guide on how to use a certain product you release is greatly appreciated, assuming it’s written well.
  • Video content – Content doesn’t always need to be written words. It can be videos as well, so make sure you don’t neglect this as an option.

The Benefits of Well-Made Content

The benefits are numerous and wide spreading. Quality guides and videos will draw people to your business. Professionally-written product descriptions will convert far more leads into sales than you could if you wrote them with no experience. In addition, social media posts will help expose your business by improving your online presence.

Finding the Right Creators

Whether you look for the services of an inbound marketing agency or search for freelance writers to help you out, there are thousands of creators out there that are willing to help you bolster your business. Just don’t forget that content can be more than just words on your website or blog. Content can be videos on a YouTube channel and they can also be images or infographics.

Summary

In short, don’t neglect to focus on the content that your website publishes. From product descriptions to videos and guides, everything that you publicly show to your audience will be an extension of your business yourself, hence why it needs to be written professionally.

Go Green in 2018

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If there is one thing you should do for your business in 2018, it is go green. We all have a duty to protect the environment and to do our bit to ensure the sustainability of our planet. The trouble is that a lot of business owners do not know where to start, assuming that it will be too difficult to do anything substantial. In fact, a few small changes can go a very long way. With that in mind, read on to discover some of the ways your business can go green this year.

  1. Go digital – One of the best ways to be more environmentally family is to move your files and records online. If you currently keep paper documents, you are going to be wasting a considerable amount of resources. Instead, you can migrate your business to the cloud, and you will no longer rely on endless amounts of paper. Plus, this can be a much more efficient and secure way to run your business.
  2. Encourage green commuting – How do your employees get to work? Do most of them use their vehicles? If so, you should try to encourage green commuting, for example, carpooling, biking, and walking. Of course, you may need to offer incentives to encourage this, but it is definitely worth it.
  3. Maximize natural light – There are many reasons why you should maximize natural light. Needless to say, this means that you are going to be relying on less energy, which is great for the environment. However, there are knock-on benefits too. This includes the fact that you will lower your energy bills considerably, and you will boost productivity levels and the atmosphere of your working environment.
  4. Bring the outdoors in – Have you considered bringing in desk plants? This will bring some nature into the office environment, making it more pleasant. However, it also makes your offices cleaner, as plants improve indoor air quality by producing more oxygen and offsetting any chemicals that are released into the working environment.
  5. Embrace renewable energy – Green power sources, for example, wind and solar energy, are more accessible than they ever have been. Options range from large-scale wind farm to rooftop solar installations. This means that any business, of any size, has the ability to make the switch to renewable energy sources.
  6. Start a sustainability team – Another way to go green in 2018 is to create a sustainability team. They will be responsible for raising awareness and helping your company to achieve more with regards to their environmental impact. Projects can range from sourcing green cleaning supplies to creating a more effective recycling program.

So there you have it: some of the easiest and most effective ways to go green in 2018. Follow the tips that have been mentioned above, and you can ensure that your business is playing its role when it comes to protecting the environment. Not only is this helpful for our planet, but it will boost your branding strategy in the process too.

How To Avoid Injury Lawsuits

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With the rise of compensation culture, employers nowadays are increasingly prone to coming under fire when it comes to health and safety. Not only do you have to worry about running your business, but this authority position also means that you have to keep an eye out for the health, safety, and well-being with every individual who engages with your business. Whether this is your employees, customers, or anyone else who makes use of your products and services or comes into contact with your professional properties. Now, this can sound like a lot of pressure, but if you handle health and safety in the correct manner, you can eliminate both the chances of people becoming hurt or injured at your hands and swerve expensive court cases at the same time! Here are a few ways to go about keeping everyone’s best interests in mind.

Safety Signage

A large number of accidents occur as people are unaware of hazards that surround them. People are easily distracted at the best of times, but the increasing popularity of smartphones and personal music systems means that people are less aware of their surroundings than ever. Take a look around you. Most people will be wearing a set of headphones, have their attention focused on their phones, or perhaps both at the same time. This is why prominent safety signage is so important. These brightly colored and bold signs catch people’s attention and alert them to potentially problematic situations. These should be used in various situations. If there has been a spill of some sort, a wet floor sign can prevent people from falling while the mess is being cleared and while the floor dries. Low ceiling signs can prevent people from bumping their heads, while indications of a step can prevent trips. Safety signage can also indicate exits should problems such as fire arise. This will help people to evacuate your commercial property quickly and efficiently.

Roof Fall Protection Systems

While relatively few people may frequent the roof of your professional locations, a fall could prove fatal. So install roof fall protection systems to ensure that anyone who does access the roof can clearly see the edge of the roof and is prevented from slipping from the edge.

Staff Health and Safety Training

While you may focus a lot of effort on training your staff to fulfill their given role to the highest level, you also need to spare time to fully train them in workplace safety. This should involve tutorials on proper lifting technique, fire safety procedure, and dealing with incidents or injuries effectively. The better trained your staff are, the less likely they are to experience injury themselves and the more likely they are to react appropriately should someone else come into trouble too.

While you may be busy and have all sorts of areas calling out for your attention, the health and safety of people need to be your priority. Just bear in mind how costly a court case could be. Not to mention the detrimental effects it could have on your professional reputation. So, always keep the old adage in mind: it’s better to be safe than sorry!

From Flat Whites To Lattes: Opening Your Own Cafe

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As of 2015, The Netherlands was the country where people drunk most coffee, with the average consumer sipping over 260 litres per year. This was followed by Finland in second place and Canada in third. In the US, 44 percent of the population claims to drink between two to three cups of coffee a day. With recent studies suggesting that drinking coffee leads to having a longer life, this trend is only going increase in upcoming years and it is as a result of this that more and more individuals are opening their own coffee-related businesses, from cafes to roasting factories.

It is a well-known fact that coffee is deeply embedded in Australian culture. After all, Australians invented the flat white and this has long become a world sensation. Opening your own cafe requires hard work and determination, but if you think you have what your locals need and can offer them an excellent coffee-based experience, this could be your chance to shine in your local coffee-loving community.

Below we tell you what you need in order to make of your dream a reality.

Location

This is the starting point for any business out there. Choosing your preferred location is striking a balance between going for an area that has the desired customer demographic and choosing somewhere you can pay for without it ruining your business’ cash flow. Whilst this is indeed a hard balance to find, the success of your business will depend on whether you have a good number of likely clients to attract, and this can only be done by setting up your coffee shop in a desirable spot. Opening your cafe in an established area will cost you and a dodgy area will likely bring you a small number of clients. Do your research and find a location that will sit in the middle of those two spectrums. Have you looked into franchise options?

Interior decoration

Once you have chosen where your coffee shop will be located, it is time to do some research on interior decoration in order to make of your cafe a beautiful and relaxing place. After all, your customers will most likely pay you a visit to drink some excellent coffee and take their mind off their everyday routine. Some of them are likely to be freelancers who have decided to make of your cafe their office base, true, but even those will need a soothing atmosphere in which to work. Apex.com.au import furniture from Europe and Asia to supply to Australian commercial venues. On their website, you will find the most incredible pieces with which to furnish your cafe.

Menu

You are the coffee connoisseur and are likely to know your flat whites from your macchiatos. You probably already have some fierce competition and as a result of this, you need to make sure you design a menu that will attract potential customers for the variety of coffees on offer and the care with which you have listed these. Put some effort into your menu-designing and you will see customers flocking to your business in large numbers!

Workplace Trends Worth Making Note Of

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If there is one thing we have learned from all previous end of year swan songs, it’s that you can’t change the past. You can look at it, analyze it and use it to help you grow; but you can’t change it. So, instead of making the mistake that almost everyone makes, which is looking back at the year just gone and focusing on the regrets, why not be positive and look to the future, understand how to smash next year’s targets and accept this where your real chances of success lie.

And, with that in mind, we have pulled together a list of workplace trends that we believe every business leader, manager and employee should be aware of moving forward. After all, knowledge is king.

  1. Human Interaction Is Back On The Menu

It wasn’t too long ago that the whole world was going bonkers for remote-working programs and, while a huge chunk of businesses are finding success down this route, some major names are refocusing on workspaces designed to promote interpersonal relationships. Offices are being redesigned with this in mind, managed technology solutions are being brought into practice to help boost human connection, hangout spaces are becoming the norm and physical spaces are getting an overhaul. Why? Well, it is partly to do with efficiencies and partly to do with Gen Y & Z-ers preferring to do things face-to-face than through technology.

  1. The New Credentials Of Learning

If the modern age will be remembered for anything other than technology itself, it is the disruption people have caused within certain niches, and education is one of the most affected of all. There are now so many third-party services that are offering a) education, b) credentials and c) certifications. The reason for this is demand. Traditional forms of tuition are becoming less popular among young adults, which has a lot to do with the rising costs associated. As such, people are shunning colleges altogether, opting for low cost and online courses instead. The result will be much more tolerance from companies to accept candidates with non-traditional credentials.

  1. AI Is Going To Become More Commonplace

This is one of those trends that is met with a mixture of excitement and anxieties, which is totally normal given that’s how all unfamiliar territory makes people feel. Anyway, what you will find over the coming year is AI enters the workplace across the board and that’s because almost every new device that gets developed these days comes with some form of intelligence. Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon – they have all gone down the AI route. If we had to pick out one niche in which this will hit businesses most, it is with Chatbots. This form of intelligence can be used in personal assistant software, customer support tech, data mining, for streamlining businesses and are even being used to answer questions – both internally and externally.

  1. Happiness Through Financial Help

More people than ever are living from one paycheck to the next, which is not so much because Millennials are bad at saving (quite the contrary), but because the cost of living is now so high it is a two-income society. This financial stress is affecting mental health and performance. As such, more and more companies are helping their employees manage this stress, with paying off student loans now a normal benefit in workplaces.

Turning A Hobby Into A Booming Business

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Everyone has a hobby, and everyone knows they’re good at or have fun with what they do in their downtime. But one day we find ourselves thinking: what if I can make money off of this? If you’ve recently find yourself entertaining the thought, or you’ve been planning it for a while, this is the sign it’s time for you to build your own business off of your hobby activities. If you don’t know where to start, here’s some of the steps you’ll want to take.

Take Baby Steps

Baby steps is often not what we want to do when it comes to getting stuck into a new venture, but doing well in your business when you’ve never conducted something like it before means taking it bit by bit is essential.

Think of it as a side hustle. You don’t want to immediately drop everything to stick at your new business, as it may not take off in the way you plan for it to. When the customers start leaving amazing reviews and you’ve got yourself a good amount of notoriety amongst a cult following, then it’s time to consider taking it up full time. For more advice, check out the tips on succeedasyourownboss.com.

Get a Website

This is the main thing to do when you want to take your ‘hobbying’ to the next level. If you don’t have a place for people to stop off at and contact you through, they’re not going to even bother! So, either build one yourself, or use the multiple online marketplaces to set up your own shop, and subsequently your own corner of the web.

It takes time, but in the end it’s worth it. Hire out a webmaster if you don’t know the first thing about web design or coding, or download some software if you’re the type of person who likes to go it alone. Either way, whatever you do with your website will work, and you can build on the design and add other functions the more and more orders you get.

Take out a Loan

Chances are you’re going to need a little more than pocket money or what’s in your savings account to set up an online retail store or buy plenty of materials to carry out your new business. It’s good then that funding is a lot more accessible than it used to be! Plenty of adverts on social media are often the first port of call if you’re looking to make it on the web.

Just because you’re a new business, or because you don’t have any previous experience, doesn’t mean you’re not deserving of a cash line from somewhere like Smallbusinessloans.co. It’s not just young and fresh entrepreneurs that always look like they know what they’re doing that use these kinds of services, and thankfully online lending options have a lot of information for you to read up on if you don’t know where to start.

Let posts like these help your endeavors!